Struggle
by LeKat
Summary: Bree has decided to try life as a vegetarian, but she still has a lot to learn about being a Cullen. Sequel to Mirror.
1. Chapter 1

**Finally, Bree's back :) **

**To those new to these stories, welcome. Please note that this is a sequel, so I would suggest reading the first story, "Mirror", before reading this one.**

**To old fans, welcome back. I'm excited to be working on this plot line again, and I hope that it doesn't disappoint.**

**This is all still happening in the time between Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.**

**Enjoy :)**

**I do not own any of the characters or settings.**

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"Carlisle, _please_," my voice was closer to a whine than I cared to admit. But I couldn't force myself to sound angry in order to make him to stop. It seemed criminal to deny Carlisle information when his eyes were gleaming with such excitement, no matter how much he was beginning to annoy me. "It's not going to work," this time I tried to sound reasonable. My pleading hadn't changed his expression, but maybe logic would.

From his place on the couch, Jasper snickered quietly. His attention was focused more on the television then on Carlisle and I, but I could just imagine how my emotional climate would amuse him. He ignored the quick scowl I threw in his direction before turning back to Carlisle.

"It won't work," I repeated. "I never wanted to make anyone else disappear. Just me." I hated explaining this, not in the least because I was sure he already knew it. I didn't want to talk about my human memories more then was absolutely necessary.

"Bree," Carlisle said. His tone wasn't wheedling in an attempt to make me cooperate; he sounded more like someone who already knows he's won the argument. "It won't hurt to test the theory."

"Sure, but honestly Carlisle…." I trailed off halfheartedly when I locked eyes with Alice over Carlisle's shoulder. She had just walked in through the back door and was busy shaking her head at me in a "don't bother" gesture.

"He's going to win," she mouthed silently.

I groaned. "Fine."

I thrust my hand out and waited for someone to come to me. Alice may have seen me giving in, but I wasn't going to make things too easy.

"I'll do it," Alice volunteered happily. She didn't wait for Carlisle's agreement before walking slowly over to stand between us. Her speed drove me crazy. It was appalling to think that eventually I would have to move that sluggishly on a regular basis.

Alice winked at me, and then turned around to face Carlisle, positioning herself so that my hand was poised over her shoulder.

"Go ahead, Bree," Carlisle said, his excitement now more pronounced. It amazed me that he could look so hungry for information when the scent of human blood never affected him.

Reluctantly, I touched my hand to Alice's delicate shoulder and turned myself invisible. The second I vanished, Jasper's head snapped around to watch us. From the corner of my eye I watched as he stared intently at the spot where I was standing. Since he couldn't see or sense me, I knew that he was concentrating on hearing me instead. The set of his body was tense, prepared to catch me if I made any strange or unpredictable movements. He'd done the same thing each time I'd used my ability today. I doubted that he would ever truly trust me. I didn't blame him.

I focused back on where my skin connected with Alice's with some hope despite my doubts about this experiment. It was so easy to get caught up in Carlisle's seemingly undying optimism. But I'd been right. There was nothing visible touching Alice, but her shoulder was still in clear view, as was the rest of her.

Without waiting for permission, I brought myself back into view. "See? I told you, I can't make anyone else invisible. I only wanted to hide myself."

"Hmm," was Carlisle's response. There was a brief flash of disappointment in his eyes, but he pushed it away quickly. "Let's try with the cup again. I want to see if—"

"Carlisle, _no_!" I snapped.

Immediately, Alice's hand went to mine, grabbing it tightly to restrain me. Jasper was half-way off of the couch, ready to push between me and his mate.

Carlisle's reaction was less violent. He put one hand up with the palm facing me, and spoke quietly, "It's all right, Bree. We don't have to do any more."

I closed my eyes and counted out ten, slow breaths. When I was calm again, I gently took my hand back from Alice. She let me, but did not move aside.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm just…tired." The word didn't exactly fit, but it was close enough. We'd been testing the parameters of my ability for the last two hours and my mind felt stretched beyond its limit.

Carlisle shrugged indifferently, but his attempt at a nonchalant smile was strained. "Don't worry," he checked his watch a little too casually. "I need to be at the hospital in fifteen minutes anyway."

I smiled slightly and shook my head. The concept of a vampire doctor was one that I would never be able to comprehend.

My smile put the others at ease; Jasper sat back down and Alice moved aside to give Carlisle room to walk.

When he passed me, Carlisle gave my arm a reassuring squeeze. "It's okay," he whispered for my ears only, then he disappeared behind me.

I stood alone on the space of living room floor. Alice had gone to sit beside Jasper, probably to assure him that I really was done with my fit of temper. I started toward the stairs without bothering to glance at them. It wasn't worth the effort. Jasper would be watching me warily, waiting for me to snap again, and Alice would be holding his hand comfortingly. Nothing changed.

I forced myself to walk slowly upstairs as I tried to push aside my irritation, or at least to hide it. I was learning very quickly that at times, it was just as important to hide your real emotions as to control your thirst. Too bad I'd never been a good actress.

I reached my room in a marginally better mood. I'd grown to respect my new family and even suspected that I could come to love some of them—all of them if I made a real effort—but I still enjoyed my times of solitude the most. Privacy was a perk of indoor living that I would never grow tired of. Just the thought of it never failed to cheer me up.

My room was no longer recognizable as the bland, spare space it had been before I'd gotten here. Alice and Esme had seen to that. Now it was full of color; the comforter on the bed was the sea-green shade I'd insisted on and the pillows and lamp shades were done in coordinating blue hues. Night stands and armchairs had been added along with a full length mirror that I'd pushed into the far corner. All props, but I liked having them anyway. The only piece of furniture that was truly useful was the desk sitting against the windowed wall. It was stuffed full of art supplies and rarely a day went by when I was sitting at it, working on some sketch or another. It was a good way to pass the otherwise monotonous hours of vampirism.

The one object that had remained the same was the small mirror hung just inside the door. Alice had insisted on getting rid of it once the bigger mirror was in place, but I'd been adamant and eventually she let me get my way. Sometimes having a temper that others were wary of was a good thing.

Now I turned and looked into that small piece of glass, as was my habit every time I came in here. Like the room, I had changed since getting to this house. I was better dressed for one; my clothing now had designer labels that I could barely pronounce. My hair looked better, less ratty. As usual I had it tied up tightly in a pony tail, out of my way. It was amazing what living inside for a month could do to you. It made you seem like a person.

But I wasn't concerned about any of this. Only my eyes interested me.

I liked to believe that I could see a tinge of orange on the fringe of my irises, but I knew that in reality the only change was that the violent red had cooled. The bright color was no longer wild, allowing me to look almost sane. I longed for the time when I would see a real difference, when first orange and then gold would transform my eyes. It was incidents like today's, however small, that reminded me how very far I still had to go.

Without looking, I raised a hand to trace over the edge of paper I'd hung next to the mirror. Any other day I would look at the sketch I had made of Kriss, a blurry and distorted drawing that looked like my fuzzy human memories. But not today. Today was not a good day for me to think about what I'd left behind.

There was a knock on my door. I allowed myself a small smile before opening it. Alice hadn't needed to knock, I'd heard her light, graceful footsteps come up the stairs, but she respected my privacy and I was grateful for it.

I pulled back the door and was met not by Alice, but by a face-full of clothes.

"Alice, what—"

"For you," she pushed them even closer to me. "Take them."

Obediently I did, to reveal Alice standing in the doorway, holding even more clothes, these sheathed in garment bags.

I leafed through the pile in my hands and found practical yet stylish denims and cotton. They were much better than my last delivery which had consisted only of silk and satin. Not that I didn't love such fancy materials, they were the types of things I'd dreamed of wearing when I was human and money was tight, but I was still too wild to use them without ruining them in some way.

"I don't think I have any more room in my closet, Alice."

She shrugged. "We can always knock down a wall to make it bigger."

I started to laugh before realizing that she was completely serious. "Yeah…Well, at least throwing a fit is good for something, right?" I indicated the clothes like they'd been a bribe to ensure better behavior in the future.

Alice smiled at my weak joke, but she was shaking her head. "It's not a big deal, you know. Your temper is as hard to control as anything right now, but you really are getting better."

I grimaced. I didn't want to be "getting better", I wanted this awkward phase of transition to be over. I wanted to be a person again, not a half-tamed animal in designer clothes.

I opened the door wider and stepped back so that Alice could come in, but she shook her head.

"I can't, sorry. I have to get started on these fittings," she raised her arm slightly so that the garment bags were more visible.

"Oh," I said. I couldn't quite hide my disappointment. Alice was the one Cullen I was always happy to talk to. "What are they?" I asked.

"Wedding clothes," Alice replied simply.

I didn't answer. Thoughts of the upcoming event were always enough to shut me up. I couldn't understand it so I didn't like to think about it.

"I'll see you later, Bree," Alice said with a happy smile. She waved and turned to go back down the stairs.

I didn't bother to count how many bags she was holding as she walked away. It didn't matter. We both knew that there would be no wedding clothes for me. That was probably a good thing since I was still a ravenous newborn. I was sure that slaughtering all of the guests plus the bride would go against proper wedding etiquette.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks to **_**Feng Yue **_**and **_**Blue Tulips**_** for reviewing Chapter 1, I really appreciate it :)**

**I do not own any of the characters or settings.**

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TV was boring. It was impossible not to notice this, even when I was flipping through as many channels as the Cullens had on their television. Had I really watched this stuff as a human? Worse was that I had actually enjoyed it. But now I saw that it was all the same: same love story, same breakups, typical triangular relationships, the occasional drug use, and more petty problems than I could count. Now, a vampire falling in love with a human, _that_ would make a good soap opera. They should bring a camera into this house if they really wanted to heighten their station's ratings.

I was about to give up and go back upstairs when the remote was torn playfully from my hand. The couch sunk slightly as Emmett sat down next to me and began flipping through channels even faster than I had been. As I watched, he leaned back and crossed his legs. I crossed my own legs at the ankles, ashamed to realize that I hadn't moved at all since I'd sat down. I was never going to fit in with humans if I couldn't remember to fidget. But I had time for that. I needed to learn how not to kill them before I worried about fitting in.

"Nothing good on, huh?" he asked once he'd gone through every station once.

"Not really," I answered.

I shifted away from him a little uneasily. I liked Emmett, but it was strange for anyone other than Carlisle or Alice to talk to me so freely. I knew it was my own fault that Esme was not included on that list. She did try. But unlike with Carlisle, who I could easily imagine taking the place of my own absent father, Esme could never be my mother. I had a mother. It was a fact that strained our relationship in uncomfortable ways and made me feel almost constantly guilty.

I leaned forward on the couch, ready to escape to my room. "Have fun," I told Emmett as I started to get up.

"Wait," he said, grabbing my wrist. I flinched away from the casual contact and Emmett hastily let go. "Sorry," he mumbled. "But stay, I want to show you something."

He moved to the cabinet under the television and pulled out a small silver box, its subtle wires running up to attach somewhere behind the screen. I joined Emmett to look more closely at it and saw that it was some kind of game consol. That much was obvious because there was a small slot where a game was obviously supposed to fit, but I didn't recognize anything else about it. It was too modern looking, very shiny, with Japanese symbols stamped in black across the top.

"What is it?"

Emmett grinned. "Brand new from Japan. It hasn't even been released in the states yet. Look." He pushed one of the nondescript buttons, then bent and started pulling out wireless controllers.

The image that appeared on the TV was typical enough: the introduction to some fighting game that featured women in scanty clothes and high heels. The big difference was that the graphics made the characters look like real people in a real place, more like a live action movie then a video game.

"Whoa," I said.

"Want to play?" Emmett handed me a controller then took his back to the couch.

"Me?" I asked, shocked by such an ordinary offer.

"No, the newborn standing next to you," the sarcasm was made less cutting by the jaunty smile perched on his face. "Of course you. C'mon, I'll show you how." He patted the space next to him where I'd been sitting before.

Play a game. It seemed like such a typical concept. Did vampires play video games? Probably not, but the Cullens had proven to be exceptions to every rule. I looked down at the controller with doubt; it seemed standard, easy enough to use. With surprise, I realized that I actually did want to play. I'd been good at video games.

"Sure," I answered, and with a genuinely excited smile I sat back down.

Emmett quickly explained the controls and then selected his character, a long legged red-head in a bright pink cocktail dress. "I bet you can't beat me on your first try," he declared mischievously.

I grinned. "Bet what?" The answer to this question was almost as interesting to me as the competition. I was curious to see what Emmett would want from me.

"How much money do you have?"

"Some," I said slyly. I'd found a pile of money stashed in my desk drawer that no one would admit to putting there. It was time to put it to good use.

"Fifty bucks?"

"You're on."

"Don't do it, Bree," the new voice was on the edge of laughter.

I looked up in time to see Jasper lowering himself into an armchair, smiling. "Emmett has this game mastered," he said. "No one's been able to beat him yet, not even Alice."

I smiled cockily, more determined than ever. "We'll see."

Jasper gave a very quick snort of laughter then settled into the chair to watch. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

On the screen, I picked out a blond girl wearing a bikini and stilettos who reminded me a little of Rosalie.

Our two characters had gotten as far as the two story shopping mall where they would fight before this controller taken from me too, much more forcefully than the first time.

"Hey!" I groped behind me to try and get it back.

"Don't worry, I paused it."

I turned and found Alice leaning on the back of the couch. "Give it back," I said. I was still too surprised to be angry so my voice came out unusually even.

Alice shook her head. "Not now, you're leaving." She gestured behind her and I noticed Rosalie and Esme for the first time, standing by the back door. Both pairs of their golden eyes had turned closer to black and I immediately understood what Alice meant by 'leaving'.

"_Another_ hunt? Please, Alice, I just went three days ago." I was tired of hunting, but that didn't stop them from dragging me into the forest two times a week, highly supervised of course. I no longer enjoyed the activity; the thrill had gone out of it. It wasn't that hard to catch a deer and they made much less of a fuss while you were killing them.

"It won't be far," Alice assured me, unmoved by my plea. "You'll be back in a few hours."

I scowled, trying to think of an excuse that would get me out of this. I could tell them that I wasn't thirsty, but that would be a lie. I'd been distracted earlier, but the thought of blood, even the weak animal version, was enough to set my throat burning. I wasn't averse to lying, but with Jasper in the room I couldn't do it, he'd give me away.

I turned my scowl on Emmett even though our interrupted game wasn't his fault. "You owe me," I told him fiercely.

Emmett visibly deflated, disappointed that I had given in so easily. "Not fair, Alice," he pouted. "Jasper won't play with me anymore, what am I supposed to do?"

"You should be grateful," Alice said as she grabbed my hand and dragged me to her side of the couch. "She was going to beat you."

"There goes fifty dollars," I muttered dejectedly. Still, I allowed Alice to pull me toward Esme and Rosalie. With Alice, resistance was futile.

Alice let go of me when we'd reached the door. "Be good," she warned me. "I'll see you all soon."

"Wait, you're not coming?" It seemed unfair that she would force me here and then leave me alone with the two vampires I was least comfortable around.

Rosalie rolled her eyes at my childish inquiry. "Is that a problem?" coming from Rosalie it wasn't a question, it was a challenge.

I drew myself up straighter. "No."

Rosalie's answering smile was smug as she turned and waved at Emmett before walking outside.

"Where will you be?" I asked Alice accusingly.

"I'm going to Bella's," she replied, unabashed.

_For wedding plans or tighter security while I'm on the loose? _was what I wanted to ask. But I managed—barely—to keep the words inside. I had to remind myself constantly that Edward wasn't the only one in love with Bella.

I turned away from Alice only to be faced with Esme's unbearably compassionate expression. "Let's go," she said softly. She reached out her arm, probably to place it around my shoulder, but thought better of it and dropped it down again.

My renewed guilt made an awkward situation worse.

Feeling stupid and very petty, I led Esme out of the house to meet Rosalie. At least I could guarantee one thing: this trip would be far from boring.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey, everyone. I feel so guilty for this huge delay, but my computer crashed and I've had a hard time finding another one that I could use to post this. Also I had a hard time getting this chapter started in the first place, so please forgive me if it's weak.**

**I do not own any of the characters or settings.**

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The scent was weak, but I allowed it to pull me forward. Behind me, I could faintly hear Esme doing the same. But she was on the edges of my senses, a distraction to be tuned out so that I could fully concentrate on the task at hand: catching my prey. I forced myself to forget that this prey was far from what I wanted t be hunting as I moved on quickly and silently, closing the gap between us.

I could hear the small group of deer up ahead, their breathing steady, each of their heart beats calm and slow, unsuspecting. I focused on the sound, the wet thumping of a heart pushing blood through a body. It alone was appealing to me, the only thing that made this hunt seem worth my time. As I came closer with Esme following behind, the sound changed. The herd had finally sensed us and the slow rhythm of their hearts turned into a frantic gallop.

I did not give them the chance to run. Enjoying the feeling my own lethal power, the strength in my legs, the indestructibility of my body, I sprang out of the concealing trees, honing in on the largest of the animals as I leaped. Arms extended, I seized my prey's neck before the others even had the chance to scatter.

A part of me—a large part—wanted to prolong this moment, to simply sit and watch as the deer futilely struggled in the iron grip of my arms. With difficulty, I allowed the urge to pass on without acting on it. Among other things, learning to control my desire for cruelty was an important part of my transition. Or at least that's what they kept telling me.

So instead of delaying in order to enjoy my power over the creature, I leaned forward and sunk my teeth in the pulse point on its neck, where the blood ran hot and fast. The struggling stopped almost instantly.

I drank as slowly as I could, fighting my instinct to devour and the self-consciousness I felt knowing that Esme was behind me. It wasn't that I wanted to savor the moment, on the contrary, if my impulse to feed had not been so strong, I would have wanted to spit out the bland-tasting blood. But I had learned the hard way that consuming my prey as quickly as possible only left me more unsatisfied than usual. At least this way I had the chance to resign myself to the fact that I wasn't going to be getting a decent meal any time soon.

When I was done, I stood up and wiped my mouth on my sleeve, tearing the fabric slightly when it scraped across my teeth. Esme had already finished. She was standing a few feet behind me, watching my movements, but not warily guarding me as the others tended to do.

It was hard to imagine that Esme had just completed a hunt; such a violent act seemed impossible from someone with such a mellow personality. Even now it would be difficult to believe that she had actually killed something if it weren't for the cooling animal corpse lying limply behind her. Her expression was the same, contented one she always wore around the house, her hair was still perfectly placed, falling in waves down the sides of her face, even her sunny yellow blouse had come away unscathed, without even a wrinkle on it, let alone a blood spatter. The only difference between Esme's appearance now and when we'd left was that her eyes had turned a pretty butterscotch color that made me immediately envious.

I stepped away from my deer and sat against of the trees that lined the tiny clearing where the herd had been grazing. As Esme followed suit, I wondered where Rosalie had gone and why she had not insisted on staying to keep an eye on me. I had expected her to be worse then Jasper when it came to making sure I was as close and controlled as possible.

"Rosalie just went off on her own for a minute," Esme said, leaning on the tree next to mine. "She'll be back soon."

I stared at her with open unease. Did Esme have some kind of ability they hadn't told me about? One like Edward's? I studied her face but found no deceit or chagrin for accidently letting slip a well-kept secret. I decided that she was simply exercising the motherly omniscience that came so naturally to her and relaxed against the tree.

"Didn't want to babysit?" I asked a little more bitterly than I'd intended.

Esme did not answer, but the discomfort on her face told me that I was close to the mark.

I sighed and stared ahead, looking into the uninteresting forest as I reached up and dislodged a leaf perched in my hair. I let my hands wander over my head, feeling the other bits of nature stuck there and the multiple strands of hair that had pulled out of my rubber band. Unlike Esme, I was a mess. Looking over myself now, I found spatters of dirt, clinging plant life, and even a singular splotch of drying blood decorating my once clean outfit. My shirt was completely ruined; it was torn in the middle from one side of my waist to the other as if a set of claws had raked across my skin. How had I managed that? Deer didn't even _have_ claws. I wondered what Alice would say when I blamed the damage to her gifts solely on vicious, low-hanging tree branches. Then I remembered that I was irritated with her and decided that I didn't care what she'd think.

Esme caught me fiddling with the ruined fabric. "Here," she said. She came toward me and gestured for me to stand up in front of her.

Confused, I did as she asked.

Without warning, Esme reached forward and grabbed my shirt just below the gash. She gave one quick yank that tore the expensive cloth like paper, first across the front, and then all the way around until a large strip of the purple fabric came loose in her hand.

I gave a small cry, worrying about how I was going to explain _that_ to Alice. But then I saw that Esme had created an even line, barely even frayed, that came up high enough to expose my midriff, turning destruction into a stylish piece of apparel.

"Thanks," I said with an awed smile.

Esme nodded. "I like that color on you," she said, stepping back slightly to survey her handiwork. "Now you can still wear it." She gave me a tentative, hopeful smile and went to sit back down. The expression made my guilt come back two times stronger. I wished that my gratitude toward Esme could be more than superficial.

I sighed again, more loudly this time, and let my legs collapse under me so that I landed at the base of the tree with a thump.

An awkward silence fell now that my newly remembered guilt had extinguished any sense of levity. I did want to talk to Esme, to establish a relationship that wasn't constantly uncomfortable. But I knew that I couldn't be her daughter like Alice and Rosalie and I was in no position to simply _befriend_ the mate of our coven's leader. There had to be some sense of authority; she didn't try to act like it, but Esme was second in command. I knew all too well that I wasn't high enough in the pecking order to ignore that fact. So I kept my mouth safely shut and went back to staring listlessly ahead, wishing that Rosalie would hurry up so that I could go back and escape to the sanctuary of my room.

After several more minutes of quiet and no Rosalie, Esme spoke. "What was your mother like?"

"What?" I stammered, caught off guard. My head snapped over to look at Esme. Her calm expression seemed not to notice the shock she'd just given me.

"Your mother," Esme repeated patiently. "Tell me about her. Everyone knows about your sister, but you never mention your parents."

"Parent," I corrected automatically. Then I shrugged. "I can't see her as easily. A lot of it is so…." I flailed my hands, searching for the word.

"Blurry?" Esme supplied.

I nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly. I remember everything, but sometimes the details get lost. Human eyes," I made an exasperated face and was rewarded with a small, understanding laugh from Esme.

"Tell me what you remember the most," she pushed when the laughter died.

I turned my entire body in her direction and curled my legs up to cover my bare stomach and placed my head on my knees, feeling suddenly exposed. Answering Esme's question would take me to a place where I didn't want to go right now. A very human place that I had been fighting to forget for the last few weeks. On the other hand, it was nice to occasionally spend some time thinking about my first family. Maybe it would be nice to talk about them in front of an attentive audience. I hesitated for a moment until my desire for conversation won out.

"She was the best," I stated simply. I lifted my head, growing more confident. "No matter how busy she was or how many hours she'd worked that day, she would always find time for us. She was always smiling, even when she was exhausted. And she used to tell the most _horrible_ jokes, but we laughed at them anyway because she tried so hard." Just the memory made me giggle. But then I sobered, sadness weighing on me. "She was a terrible housekeeper. Our apartment was always a mess." I laid my head back down on my knees, face down this time. "I miss her," I mumbled. It wasn't an admission that I liked to make; it made me feel embarrassingly needy for a vampire. Still, it was the truth and I couldn't get around it. Why had Esme brought this stuff up again?

With a whistle of displaced air, Esme was beside me, putting her arm around me with no hesitancy. I tried to shake her off, to pretend, like I did with all of my other weaknesses, that this one didn't exist either. For once, Esme held strong, not allowing me to dissuade her. She even placed her fingers under my chin and forced me to look up at her.

"I cannot replace your mother," Esme said, her ochre eyes flaring with a tenacity that I rarely saw in her. "And I promise that I'm not trying to."

I flinched away, jerking her fingers from my chin. My anger flared now that I could clearly see where this conversation was going. It wasn't fair to be angry, but it was better then feeling the full blown embarrassment that was building up inside of me. Of course Esme knew the reason for my distance with her. Hadn't I acknowledged her maternal sixth sense not fifteen minutes ago?

Esme ignored my discomfort. "I'm _not,_" she insisted even more firmly. Her abnormally fiery eyes held mind until I slumped, defeated.

"I know that," I admitted feebly, "but I can't be what you want either."

"What's that?"

I balked. Was she really going to make me say it? "Your daughter. Like the others. I just can't do it." I took a deep breath and waited for the persuasions to begin, the familiar explanations of how I was part of _this_ family now and should be glad of it.

Again, Esme surprised me. "No one's asking you to. But that doesn't mean we can't still be friends."

Immediately I shook my head, dismissing the idea.

"Why not?"

My head shake continued. "Because you belong with Carlisle." I expected that to be the end of the conversation. It seemed like such an obvious reason.

"And?" Esme asked, undeterred. "Carlisle's your friend."

"Yes," I said with exaggerated patience. I wondered if she was acting dense on purpose just to pull more words out of me. "But he's also my leader."

All at once, Esme's face turned from questioning to sympathetic. It was not a switch that I was comfortable with. "Bree," she said in a voice that was meant to be comforting. "You're not part of a typical coven anymore. This is a family. We're in this together, no matter who has the higher 'rank'." She made air quotes around the last word to show how little meaning the term held in her mind.

I considered this strange concept and very slowly began to nod. Even if I didn't completely agree with her, I could see Esme's point. Living with the Cullens was nothing like being in my old coven. They did everything else differently, why would their concept of leaders and followers be something I was familiar with? Finally I moved to face Esme, unfolding my knees and sitting cross legged in front of her.

Sensing my reluctant acceptance, Esme continued. "No matter who I'm married to," I cringed inadvertently at the word, "I'll be around if you need to talk to a…motherly _figure_. No strings attached."

A sudden inspiration struck me. "Like an aunt?" I could hear the hope in my voice. I'd never had an aunt.

Esme hesitated, thinking about this compromise. An aunt wasn't a mother, but there was still enough authority connected to the term to satisfy my ideals. Finally, Esme's face lit up with a smile. "Yes," she agreed enthusiastically. "Just like an aunt."

"Auntie Em?" I asked, and giggled madly even though my reference to the Wizard of Oz made no sense. I was too relieved to care how stupid I sounded.

Esme joined in my laughter, as happy as I was that our conflict had been settled. "Sure," with a knowing twinkle in her eye, she responded to my lame joke. "Except this time, the Wicked Witch is already dead."

I laughed hard enough that I half expected tears to start building in my eyes. The abrupt absence of stress between us was like a dark cloud lifting. I hadn't realized how much the tension and my resulting guilt had weighed until now that that weight was gone.

A soft, musical chuckle added itself to our celebration. I wrenched my head around and met eyes with Rosalie from where she was standing across the clearing. She too was flawless, completely unmarred by her hunting activities.

My laugher died off abruptly in the face of her perfection and a fog of apprehension settled over me. How much had she heard? It was one thing to have finally settled my differences with Esme, but having Rosalie hear me struggle through the process was another. I straightened my spine slightly and waited for Rosalie's warm golden eyes to change into contemptuous slits in response to my weakness.

They didn't. In fact, after that first glance, Rosalie paid me no attention except to nod vaguely in acknowledgement of my existence.

She turned her attention to Esme instead. "Ready?"

Esme looked at me and smiled. "Yes, I think we are." She sprang lithely to her feet and held out a hand to help me up. I didn't need the assistance, but I took her offered hand anyway.

As soon as I was upright, Esme crossed the small patch of grass and stood next to Rosalie.

"Everything all right?" Rosalie asked Esme with a pointed glance in my direction.

"Perfect," Esme said, snaking one arm around Rosalie's waist and squeezing tightly. She even stretched up and pecked Rosalie lightly on the cheek. "Thanks, Rose."

Rosalie smiled prettily and nodded a more modest acceptance of her mother's gratitude then I would have believed possible.

It was this unchallenging, strangely open side to Rosalie that allowed me to see things clearly.

It had all been a trap, another family conspiracy in the guise of an ordinary hunt. I ignored my strong sense of aggravation for being manipulated and tried to focus on the good parts of this new plot. That the results were good couldn't be denied. I wondered how much they'd paid Rosalie to get her to go along. I chopped that thought off at birth. Looking at Rosalie, happily contained by Esme's arm, it was impossible to believe that money had changed hands. Rosalie might not be the leader of my fan club, but that didn't matter. She'd done it for her mother, plain and simple.

"Come on," still holding Rosalie, Esme held out her free hand, beseeching.

Annoyed or not, it was hard to hold back my happy grin as I ran forward to join them.

"When we get home," Esme said, walking forward and dragging Rosalie and I along by our hands, "I have some blueprints up in my room that I want to show you. They're for a little renovation project I've been working on, and I'd love your help."

"Sure," I agreed, trying to muster real enthusiasm for the idea. Architecture was not my forte.

"Good," Esme beamed. "Now it can really be a family project."

My answering smile slipped when our line of clasped hands was broken with a jerk. Rosalie was now walking a little ahead of us, her hair bouncing in time to her quickened step.

I looked over to Esme in confusion. She was frowning now, the corners of her mouth turned down and her lips pursed slightly as if she were biting her tongue in an attempt to take back her words.

Our bubble of contentment vanished. Esme released my hand so that we were all separate once again.

I walked on in bewilderment, trying to imagine blueprints so offensive that Rosalie wanted nothing to do with them, not even to keep Esme happy. I was beginning to wonder if this family, so unconcerned with leadership and other traditional rules, was really as indivisible as its members pretended to be.

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**I have to offer more apologies in advance. My computer is still down so it might take a little bit of time to get the next chapter up even though it's already half written.**

**Hope you enjoyed this one :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**I do not own any of the characters or settings.

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"Yes!"

I was careful not to actually throw the expensive controller, but I did drop it hard enough on the couch that it bounced as I sprang to my feet and threw my arms in the air.

To the sound of Jasper's amused laughter, I added a hip-wiggling dance to my celebration. Then I reduced my display of smugness to a large smile and stuck my hand out, palm up, into Emmett's stunned face.

"No way," Emmett shook his head violently. "Best three out of five."

"No way," I mimicked, wiggling my fingers. "Pay up."

Unable to accept the fact that I really would have beaten him the day of my hunt with Esme, Emmett had once again challenged me to a match in his high-tech video game. Apparently he was convinced that extenuating circumstances would have tipped my hand that day and that there was no way it could happen again.

"C'mon," Emmett had said, his eyes and voice edging toward mischievous.

I'd pretended to consider his doubled offer. "One hundred dollars for a video game? Doesn't seem worth the humiliation." I meant _his_ humiliation, not mine. I had no intentions on losing.

"True," Emmett nodded in mock seriousness. I hid my grin with an effort; he'd taken the bait. By this time, Jasper had wandered in and settled himself in the armchair to watch the show. "How about two hundred?" Emmett continued. "That's not too much to give up for a bit of fun."

Considering I had seen the cars in the garage, I didn't doubt that statement. In my old life, two-hundred dollars would have been grocery money for the week. Here it was pocket change.

I scratched my chin and adopted a concerned expression. "Yeah," I said slowly, "but it's not much to win either." I purposely left out the words _for me_ in that sentence.

Jasper barked a short, soft laugh. I looked in his direction and, with my back to Emmett, responded to his knowing smile with a wink.

Emmett, without the benefit of Jasper's ability to sense that my concern was a ploy, fell for it again. "Two-fifty?" His tone had changed from wheedling to smug. I could practically hear him calculating how my money would add to his wallet. "Deal?" he held out his hand for me to shake.

Finally, I allowed my grin to show. Before the smile could make him too nervous, I grabbed Emmett's hand and shook it.

Five minutes later I'd decimated him, sending his red-headed character into wildly unrealistic death throes on the floor of our arena. Emmett stared, open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the screen, which displayed the word WINNER in bold letters over the head of my character and an equally satisfying LOSER over his.

Jasper was laughing wildly. He punched his hand into the air. "Yes! It's about time!"

Emmett was now shaking his head in denial. "Nuh-uh," he said, annoyance taking the place of his shock. "Nuh-uh. That's just beginner's luck. Double or nothing you can't do that again."

"You're on," I'd said, and picked up the controller once more.

Now I continued to hold my hand in Emmett's face, waiting for the money he owed me for beating him two times in a row.

Emmett was scowling fiercely, but behind that, I could tell that he was trying to think of some way to get out of the bet. Not because of the money—even doubled, I was sure he had the amount of our bet in his pocket—but because he didn't want to add further insult to the massive injury his pride had just suffered.

Finally, with a growl that was more frustrated than feral, Emmett tilted his hips up at an awkward angle and rummaged in his back pocket. Grudgingly and with much incoherent grumbling, Emmett counted five one-hundred dollar bills into my outstretched hand.

I used the crisp bills to execute a mock salute and then shoved the money unceremoniously into my pocket. It would probably sit there, untouched, until I remembered to save it from the washing machine. But that didn't matter. The look on Emmett's face was the better prize.

"Beginner's luck," he muttered again. "It was just that character you picked. She looks too much like Rose, I could never beat her up."

Emmett wasn't as careful about his controller. It was thrown off his lap and crashed to the floor when he stood up; one of the hand holds cracked down the middle. Emmett finished the job as he stalked off, kicking the ruined gadget against the wall so that the handle came off completely.

"Play again sometime?" I asked his retreating back. I couldn't keep my huge smile out of the words.

Emmett ignored my jibe, but quickened his pace. The door slammed behind him as he went outside, probably to take his anger out on something Esme wouldn't scold him for breaking.

I sat back down on the couch and settled into a pose of relaxed contentment. In the armchair, Jasper was still smiling. The expression made his battle-scared face look immeasurably softer.

"Nice job," he said. "Emmett needs to be taken down a notch every once in a while."

Shock obscured the happiness that his statement caused. _Jasper_ had said I'd done well. I actually had his _approval_. Granted it was for my performance in an inconsequential video game, but the idea still made me proud. I'd never expected that I could gain approval from Jasper in any aspect of life, no matter how small. What was more, I hadn't realized how much I'd wanted it.

My smug smile transformed into one of gratitude. "Thanks," I said softly. For a rare instant, I was glad of Jasper's ability. It meant that I didn't have to embarrass myself by explaining how far my gratitude extended.

We shared a significant glance during which I discovered that relations between Jasper and I didn't always have to be those of guard and prisoner. Of course, we would never be truly comfortable around each other either, but at least this was a start.

"Do you want to?" I gestured toward the broken controller. "I'm sure he has another one stashed around here somewhere."

Jasper snorted and violently shook his head. "Not a chance. I can't even beat Emmett. I'd prefer to keep my pride intact."

I started to giggle, but Jasper suddenly broke eye contact and focused on the space behind me with another, warmer smile. I looked over my shoulder to see what he was staring at, but there was nothing there. When I turned back, my field of vision was interrupted by a blurry streak of white. I jumped in surprise and recoiled from the strange sight.

"Tah dah!" Alice's voice trilled.

I jerked back enough so that the white blob wasn't as close to my face. It revealed itself to be a small plastic rectangle, almost like a credit card. Alice was brandishing it at the end of her extended arm, still too close for comfort.

Without asking what she could possibly be up to this time, I took the card from Alice. The side facing me was blank, but when I turned it over I gasped in wonder.

It was a Washington state driver's license, almost an exact replica of the one I'd seen in my mother's wallet thousands of times. Only this one was mine.

My height, weight, and date of birth proclaimed themselves on the card. Next to them, my own image stared back at me, looking uncomfortable in front of the camera. I didn't even want to know where Alice had gotten the picture. It looked suspiciously like the one I'd taken in my freshman year except that I looked slightly older, my skin was paler, and my eyes were a different color. I lingered over the photo; it was like looking into the future, or at least, what I hoped the future would eventually bring. In this altered photograph, they'd given me golden eyes. But even that wasn't the best part. Sitting right next to the picture was my name: _Bree Cullen_. I read the line of simple, uniform print twice more, adjusting to the look of those particular letters strung together, the way the syllables would sound if they were spoken aloud. Bree Cullen. I could get used to that.

Alice interrupted my euphoric reverie. "I had to change the date a little, but you can pull it off." I looked again and noticed for the first time that my date of birth was in fact rolled back a year. I was now officially older, an experience I'd never thought I would get to have again. "And you'll have to wait a while to _really_ use it, at least not by yourself," Alice continued. She pointed to my picture and the obvious discrepancy in my eyes.

The message was clear. Until I matched that image—maybe not even then—I wasn't going to be allowed alone in a car that could take me anywhere I wanted to go. Like a highly populated city for instance. Still, I was used to restrictions by now and the addition of another one couldn't bother me much today. Just the fact that they'd thought to get me a license with their name printed next to mine was enough. It was like they had finally given me a membership card to their exclusive family.

"How?" I asked, too awed to form a coherent sentence.

"Forged," Alice said simply, as if that were a perfectly normal answer.

I looked at Jasper, hoping for a denial, but he nodded in easy agreement.

"Okay…" I said, adjusting to the idea before allowing myself to admit that it made sense. "Well, thanks," I told them awkwardly, "it means a lot."

"No problem," Alice said before latching onto my arm. "Now let's go."

"Go where?" I asked cautiously. Alice looked too excited for my own good.

"You've got to learn to use a car sometime right?"

"Really?" I was excited again. Would the wonders of this day never cease?

"Sure," Alice tugged on my arm, as eager as I was. "It'll be easy, you'll see."

"Okay!" I hopped up.

"Want me to go with you?" Jasper asked, sounding hopeful.

"And corrupt her with the ideals of a _male_ driver? I don't think so."

Alice responded to Jasper's look of incredulity with a dainty smile. She waltzed over to him, leaning against his chest and giving him a sweet kiss. "We'll be fine," she said reassuringly.

Jasper tried to trap her, grabbing Alice by the hips to keep her there, but Alice smacked him playfully and wiggled away. "No time for that," she said, and I looked away before the implications of that sentence could fully sink in.

"All right," Alice popped up next to me and grabbed my hand in a loose grip.

I pulled away gently and began to follow her on my own. For once, I was being led somewhere I wanted to go, so for now, no coercion was necessary. I turned to give Jasper a quick wave, but he'd already disappeared.

Like I'd expected, Alice brought me to the garage. As usual upon entering it, I let out an embarrassing whimper of longing. The door was open today, allowing grey light to bounce off the shiny hoods of the cars. Unconsciously, I began to walk toward a flame red BMW, the streamlined machine acting like a magnet.

"Uh-uh. Not if you want to live," Alice spun me around so that my back was to the car. "That's Rosalie's."

"Ah," I walked away quickly before I could do something stupid like breathing too hard on the paint.

"We're taking this one." Alice headed outside and stood in front of Carlisle's black Mercedes.

It was ready and waiting in the drive way, averting any damage I might have caused to the other cars by bringing it out myself. It was the least conspicuous of all the vehicles, but also the most boring. Suddenly I wished that Carlisle wasn't working such a late shift today. But I jumped into the offered driver's seat without any verbal complaint. Fancy cars could come later; it was something to look forward to.

"Gearshift, wipers, blinkers," Alice pointed out the various knobs and levers inside the car. All of them were familiar. "Just remember to break before you try to shift gears and _slow down_ when you turn. Traffic accidents may mean nothing to you, but I'm sure Carlisle would prefer if you didn't kill his car."

I knew that she was serious, but I giggled anyway. Better Carlisle's car than Rosalie's.

Alice glared at me, but went on in a cheerful tone, "The rest is simple." She waved her hand toward the key sitting in the ignition and I turned it eagerly.

With the car humming comfortably under my fingers, I shifted into Drive and eased my foot onto the pedal. We inched forward across the drive, moving at a phenomenally slow rate. I itched to push down harder, but I was afraid of shooting forward uncontrollably and hitting a tree.

Alice faked a yawn. "I could walk faster than this," she grumbled.

I looked at her hopefully, dying for her permission to floor it. "Can I?"

"_Please_."

I grinned and stepped down hard.

We did blast forward, but not uncontrollably. Though we were rapidly gaining momentum, the path of the road stayed clearly visible. The trees did not dissolve into a treacherous wall of speed; I could see each one of them with perfect clarity in the split second before they rushed by. I saw every curve and obstacle, each tiny adjustment that needed to be made to the steering wheel was incredibly obvious. I let out a small whoop of happiness, enjoying this new brand of freedom.

"That way," Alice pointed forcefully when the road split in two. She was making no effort to hide that she was leading me away from town, but for once the caution didn't bother me. I was too happy. Inside the car, I was isolated from the rest of the world. Slight smells came in through the air vents and the gaps between the doorframes, but they weren't enough to entice me. I was free to enjoy the scent of fresh air without worrying about my killing instinct taking over. For a few, precious seconds, I was honestly free of thinking about the dangers of being me.

I zoomed on, watching the way the trees caught light from the grey, all consuming cloud cover, the graceful curve of the asphalt as it fought for room in the dense foliage. It was a picture worth remembering. I started planning how this would look on paper: the blur of speed between the trees, but the clarity of the trees themselves, the smattering of raindrops as they were now appearing on the windshield, the exact pencil I would use to recreate the lighting.

I took a sharp right, accelerating much faster into the turn than I was supposed to. When it felt like the car was on four wheels again, I looked over at Alice apologetically.

Her head shake was resigned. "I knew you would," she shrugged then smiled brightly. "Told you it was easy."

"It's great," I replied enthusiastically.

There was another turn coming up and I made a point of slowing down.

"Wait, Bree."

Alice's voice was unexpectedly hesitant, but I ignored her, determined to make the turn properly this time. "There," I said proudly when I'd executed the maneuver much more smoothly. The road here was almost completely straight, even easier to navigate than the last stretch had been. "Better?"

Alice didn't answer. Annoyed, I looked over again.

"Alice?" my question was frantic.

Alice's face was panicked, her eyes wide, and her mouth slightly open.

"Alice?" I took one hand off of the steering wheel long enough to poke her shoulder. "What's wrong?' I was truly scared now. I had never seen Alice so shaken.

Finally, she looked at me. "Turn around," she said quietly.

"What?" I blurted stupidly. Such simple words did not match her horrified expression.

"Turn around," Alice repeated, more loudly this time. She had worked her face back into a controlled pose, but her eyes were still wild.

"Alice, what's going on?" confusion blotted out most of my worry.

"Do it _now, _Bree," her voice was edging toward panic.

"But-"

"I can't see."

The distraught words, so odd coming from a vampire, made me slam on the brake, throwing us forward against the dashboard. The sentence scared me more than her expression had. I knew that Alice was not referring to physical sight.

"What do you mean?" I reached out dumbly and laid my hand on her forehead as if checking for a fever. I wished that the explanation could possibly be that simple.

"Too late," Alice whispered.

"What are you _talking_ about?" I was getting frustrated. I couldn't help if she wouldn't tell me what was wrong.

Instead of answering, Alice pointed at the windshield.

In front of us, three large, dark animals—shapes that I recognized all too easily—emerged from the tree line, eyes fierce and teeth bared, ready to literally rip us to pieces.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hi everyone (finally) :)**

**I had a really hard time with this one; the plot started going in directions I hadn't originally intended and I got lost, but hopefully this sounds okay.**

**To ****littledhampir13****: I promise, I started looking at this again right after you PM'd me, but I just couldn't figure it out. Thanks very much for bringing this story back to my attention, or I might never have picked it up again.

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**

If they had been any other animals—helpless, frail animals—I would have laughed at Alice's reaction and kept driving. But these weren't just animals. They were dangerous.

A wild snarl erupted from my throat as I remembered our last encounter, how efficiently they'd fought, how quickly and easily they had decimated the newborn fighting force I'd been part of. These were enemies. Deadly enemies. And I'd come right to them.

I lunged for the door, ready to wrench it out of my way. Minutes ago the confines of the car had seemed liberating, now they were a prison, keeping me trapped and defenseless.

"Don't," Alice whispered urgently, her eyes never leaving the front windshield. She latched onto my thigh and squeezed it tightly; the seat beneath me sank slightly under the pressure of her hand.

I yanked my leg away and turned my growl on her. The scent of them was beginning to leak into the car, sour and rank. I wasn't going to just sit here. I longed to attack them, despite the odds against me; the urge was as instinctual as my need to feed. Not that I wanted to eat them. The very idea of putting my mouth near them made my stomach roil with the remembered pain of nausea.

I went for the handle again. I _needed_ to be outside in the open, able to attack or defend myself as necessary.

"_Please_, Bree," Alice said in a tone that was remarkably close to begging. "Let me talk to them."

"_Talk_?" my voice was low and dangerous, a sound I hadn't used against Alice in weeks. I wasn't about to talk to these _dogs_, they weren't worth a conversation.

"Stay here," Alice commanded. Such an authoritative order coming from someone who looked as delicate as Alice took me aback.

My second's hesitation gave Alice the time to shoot me one last warning glare and step calmly out of the car.

"Hello," Alice began with a small wave and a forced smile. The dogs' growling, continuous background noise since we'd stopped, quieted a little. Only the larger black on in the middle was looking at Alice; the other two kept their eyes trained on the car, on me.

"We didn't mean to end up over here," Alice's manner was placating. "It was an accident, a wrong turn."

I snapped. Listening to her justify our actions to these _creatures_ was just too much. I bolted from the car, snapping off the door handle in my fury. Wildly, I thought of Carlisle. He wouldn't have wanted me to break his car. He also wouldn't have wanted me to lose control, but it was too late for that one too.

I raced the short distance between the car and the wolves, ignoring Alice's expression of horror. The dog's low rumblings turned into snapping snarls, and they turned away from Alice, converging in a V-shaped attack formation. I took in all of the necessary details as I ran. There were three of them, and I couldn't count on Alice for help while she was so busy talking, so there was a good chance that I was going to die. In my fevered brain, that didn't matter. The important thing was that by his size, I'd identified the black dog as the leader. He was my target. I'd seen them fight and I knew I couldn't get all of them by myself, but one was coming with me. It was what they deserved.

I'd already decided that Alice wouldn't help me. What I didn't expect was for her to help _them._

At the last moment, she stepped in front of me, in between me and my goal. I ran into her head on, our bodies crashing together with a deafening slam. I should have been able to run her over and keep going, but Alice wrapped her arms around my neck and held on. She was stronger than I would have expected and fiercer than I'd ever seen her. With huge difficulty and stubborn determination, she dragged me back, careful not to let my flailing feet cross the small patch of ground between us and the wolves.

I wanted free. I kicked and slapped, and even tried to bite her, but I if I pulled much harder, I wouldn't have to worry about the dogs. Alice had a firm grip on my head; if I kept fighting, it would end up snapping off in her hands. I relaxed slightly to ease the strain on my neck. She took advantage and maneuvered me into a more manageable position, eerily similar to the one Jasper had held me in when I'd tried to escape all that time ago. Like then, it was still the perfect way to hold me hostage; I couldn't do anything without causing more harm to myself. Worse, this time, I couldn't rely on my gifts to get me out. The last thing I was about to do was give the wolves an advantage over me by showing them my invisibility.

Unlike Jasper, Alice was standing slightly to my side in order to see past me. If I craned my neck far enough, I could just make out the side of her face.

"What are you doing?" I hissed.

I started to fight again, savagely pitching my legs and pulling against her arms. I was taller than Alice, I should have an advantage over her, she was no match for my strength and size. But Jasper had taught her well. What Alice lacked in brute force, she made up for with strategy. I wasn't going anywhere.

"Alice," I tried, pleading now, or pleading as much as I could through my feral snarls, anyway.

She had to let me go. I _needed_ to attack them. I couldn't understand how she could stand there so calmly with these creatures just feet away. They were enemies. They absolutely _reeked_ of danger. If we didn't kill them, they would get us first, there was no question of that in my mind. But Alice's face remained impassive, completely devoid of emotion except for tight lines of stress around her eyes and an anger that was directed at me, not them.

"Stop," she ordered, giving my neck a sharp shake to emphasize her point.

When she was satisfied that she had me well in hand, she brought her full attention back to the dogs. One in particular, a mottle gray one, was straining almost as hard as I was. His huge claws pawed the earth, pacing backward and forward without ever entering the small space we'd left between us. His hackles were up and his fangs bared, huge ivory spikes that looked larger than one of my fingers. The threatening sight did not help my mood. Apparently it didn't help the leader's either. He turned his head and snapped viciously, his own teeth barely missing the gray wolf's ear. The gray one looked up at him with unmistakable disdain, then took the point and took a full step backward.

"Please," Alice said, and the black dog pulled his remarkably intelligent eyes back to her. Alice's voice was sterner now that I'd gotten her agitated, but still it held that tone of deference that had incited my fury in the first place. "Sam, let me take her back. She has no idea."

Sam. The idea that the dog had a name shocked me, but it was almost expected. Monster that I was, even I had a name. It was Alice's casual use of it that bothered me. She talked like she knew them, not as established enemies, but as acquaintances. She was actually asking them to let us go instead of fighting for her right. It didn't make sense, it went against nature.

Then I understood.

Alice talked to these creatures as equals because to her, that's exactly what they were. In the heat of my homicidal rage, I'd let myself forget. Yes, I'd seen the dogs fight before…during the same battle I'd fought against the Cullens. They were on the same side. Allies. I should have known it from the beginning. If I'd been allowed to complete my initial attack, Alice probably would have joined with them against me.

"Traitor," I spat. It wasn't exactly the right sentiment, but I felt betrayed, like this freakish partnership was a personal insult. And in some ways, it was. By working together, they'd nearly destroyed me.

Alice's only response to my outburst was an infuriating roll of her eyes.

Once again, the growling grew in volume and intensity. The dogs were becoming impatient.

"Please, Sam," Alice repeated. She took a deliberate step backwards, dragging me along. I tried to retain as much dignity as possible, but the only thing I accomplished by stubbornly planting my feet was to leave deep tracks in the earth.

On some unseen signal, the formation of the dogs shifted. They moved out of their attacking position and grouped defensively around their leader instead. For one brief instant, their snarling turned into piteous whining and they looked up at the black wolf with very human expressions of unease. Then the scene in front of me changed again and I let out an unwilling shout of surprise. Where there had once been three dogs, there were now only two animals and one tall, russet-skinned man.

Alice's grip around me tightened as she tensed. She took another step back and this time, I didn't protest. "You don't have to do that," Alice said sensibly, but the tiny waver in her voice betrayed her nerves.

The man—Sam—shrugged, his shoulder muscles moving smoothly. He was shivering; his entire body shaking like it was unbearably cold. I noticed now that he was completely naked, his form mostly hidden behind the bulk of the dogs. If the situation were any less desperate, I might've been embarrassed. As it was, I didn't care and he didn't even seem to notice.

"We don't have time to wait for Edward to come and translate," he said, gesturing at my writhing form with a trembling hand as if that settled all debate. Despite his shakes, his tone was unconcerned and easy; he didn't view me as a threat.

His partners weren't so convinced. Their fur was raised in tense tufts, their claws cloyed at the ground, and their haunches were coiled tight ready to spring if I attempted the slightest movement.

Behind me, Alice nodded, accepting these new conditions.

"You kept it?" Sam asked without preamble.

"She surrendered," Alice replied simply.

A contemptuous sneer crossed his face, as if the very idea that I'd been allowed to live was repugnant. It was a feeling I whole-heartedly reciprocated.

Sam stared at me, taking in my untamed eyes and furious expression. His gaze snapped abruptly to Alice. "Does she know the rules?"

"She's learning."

"Not good enough."

Alice pulled in a steadying breath. "We're working on it, but it takes time. We're keeping her safe."

"Safe," he scoffed.

"Keeping _them_ safe," I muttered darkly. None of this had ever been about keeping me safe; it was simply their job to contain me.

"Hush," Alice hissed, jerking my neck in warning. She addressed Sam, "This was an accident. She's been doing very well."

Those words again. I growled deep in my throat at their condescending nature, an action that probably did not help my case. I didn't care. I didn't need to prove myself, least of all to them.

Sam studied us for a long moment, then gave another uncaring shrug. "She's your responsibility. We can't do anything until she slips up."

"And today?" Alice asked, undeterred by Sam's confident statement against me.

"You didn't cross," he eyed the ground like there was a physical line painted there. "The next time you go for a joy ride, pay more attention."

Deep hatred flared in my chest, but Alice didn't respond to the presumptuous reprimand. She reinitiated her movements back towards the car. She moved hesitantly, waiting to be called back, but Sam made no attempt to stop her.

"She's with your family now?" Sam called to our retreating forms.

Alice paused for the briefest instant. "No," she answered slowly. "Just until she's under control."

I quit fighting, dragged down by her words. The sense of betrayal over their partnership was nothing compared to what I felt now. I could feel the weight of my newly forged license in my back pocket. Bree Cullen, it read, but apparently that meant much more to me than it did to them. I'd let myself get much too comfortable, too complacent. I should have known better.

Sam nodded at Alice. "If anything happens, it's your responsibility." The words were simple and obvious, but there was an underlining threat in them that I didn't understand.

"We know," Alice said gravely, quickening her step.

Sam gave one more, imperious nod and with an odd tearing sound, he disappeared. In his place, the black wolf was back, impressive and infinitely more dangerous than his human self.

As one, the wolves turned and took off into the forest. At the tree line, two more monstrous shapes joined them. Five against two the whole time. I'd been too distracted by the sight and scent of the ones in front of me to even consider a trap. Suddenly I was glad Alice had held me back.

The revelation didn't seem to faze Alice. She kept going, still facing the forest, until we reached the car. Without releasing me, she fumbled for the door handle on the passenger's side, and with vicious force, shoved me toward the opening.

"_In,"_ she commanded, and I climbed inside unquestioningly.

Alice was breathing almost as hard as I was as she took my previous spot behind the wheel. I'd never seen her so angry; right now she looked more dangerous than the whole pack of dogs. Gingerly, I felt my neck where she'd gripped me. There was no pain, but I wondered how close I'd really come to obliteration.

She turned the key and slammed the door shut by the frame, sending a spider web of cracks up the window. She jerked the car into reverse, pulling us away as quickly as possible.

"I _told_ you to stay," she seethed, pounding a dainty fist against the steering wheel. "If you'd just let me _talk_ to them." She ran a hand across her eyes and was abruptly calm. "Now they know," she said, seemingly to herself.

"What does it matter?" I sneered. "Since I won't be around much longer."

"Don't," she replied wearily, pushing aside my selfish comment.

I drew in a tight breath and attempted some measure of calm. The trees were rushing past us and rain was hitting the windshield like little bullets as we zoomed back the way we had come. "Fine," I gave in, but injected enough stubbornness into my tone to let her know that I wasn't finished with the subject. "So what was that?"

"_That_," Alice said rigidly, staring straight ahead, "was you nearly starting a war."

"War?" I scoffed. The idea was so nearly comical that I could actually hear a crazed smile in my voice. "Another one?"

Alice didn't bother with a glare to shut me up this time—she skipped straight to a deep, threatening snarl that erased my inappropriate humor. "You came _this_ close," she emphasized the words by holding her thumb and forefinger barely a millimeter apart, "to crossing into their territory."

"So?"

"So, you do that and you're dead." She paused and looked straight at me for the first time since we'd started moving. "We all are." There was an emotion in her eyes that I didn't care to translate. It was too close to fear. Maybe that easy amiability she'd demonstrated with the dogs didn't go as deep as I'd thought.

"Why?" I asked softly. I wasn't ready to let go of my belligerence, but Alice's worry—worry for her whole family—toned down most of my anger.

"Later," she said, suddenly all business. In one smooth motion, she pulled a silver cell phone out of her pocket and flipped it open. She was talking before the person on the other end of the line could say hello. "Carlisle? We need to talk."


	6. Chapter 6

_**Finally.**_

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When I saw Edward's car in the driveway, I knew I was in trouble. Lately, Edward had been acting more like a ghost than a vampire, flitting through the house in the deepest hours of the night and then leaving quickly. That he was going back to guard his Bella from me was something I couldn't doubt. If this was something that could bring him home in daylight, then this whole "war" concept might be more serious than I'd thought.

Alice parked the car and I opened my door cautiously. "This is bad, isn't it?" I didn't really need the confirmation; something told me there was more going on here than I knew.

Alice shot me a look that said "You think?" in no uncertain terms. She pried open the ruined door of the Mercedes and started toward the house.

I followed, reluctantly, but without backing down. A few weeks ago I wouldn't have gone after her, I would have been too concerned about the family's reaction. Now I moved with my head up. I wasn't precisely sure about the severity of what I'd done, but I _had_ done it and I wasn't going to run away. At the very least I planned to learn exactly what those dogs were.

We reached the door and walked inside. I'd expected a welcoming committee: the whole family waiting just beyond the door, full of probing questions and accusatory glances. Alice had given Carlisle the bullet points of our encounter over the phone, so I wasn't exactly expecting a warm hello. But to my surprise, the entirety of the huge front room was empty.

"Where-" I began, but Alice pointed vaguely up ahead without breaking her stride before I could finish.

She led me into a room that I had taken every opportunity to laugh about since the first time I'd seen it. A dining room. I knew that the props were important, but this one had always seemed ridiculous to me. Lots of normal people ate in their kitchens or living rooms instead in a formal dining room. What did the Cullens _use_ that huge table for, dinner parties? The image of a Thanksgiving dinner always hit me: the Cullens sitting upright and proper, napkins folded on their laps, heads bowed because of course, Carlisle would insist on saying grace over the deer they had sprawled in the center of the table in place of a turkey.

At least now I could put aside that absurd vision.

This dining room had nothing at all to do with food. It was a conference room. Now that I saw it with everyone assembled, each sitting in a chair and looking professional rather than proper, I could see that the long oval table was better suited to an office building.

Carlisle was at the head of the table, but he stood up when we entered and offered Alice his chair. She considered for a moment, and then declined. It was her story—it couldn't be _our_ story, I'd been too blinded by rage to think clearly—but in the end, any decisions wouldn't be hers to make alone.

I looked around at the gathered faces; Carlisle's ever-present calm, Esme's naked concern. Rosalie looked board, but that wasn't anything unusual. Emmett worried me a little. He looked too intense, almost eager. Generally action or competition were the only things that made Emmett excited like that and neither of those sounded good right now. Jasper had been pacing when we'd come in, but he seemed better now that Alice was in sight and was sitting next to her. He was watching her, intent and tense. It looked like she and Edward were having a deep, non-verbal discussion, probably a full recap of the day's events. I wondered now if things might have been different if Jasper had decided to come with us. Certainly he would have gotten me under control much faster.

With a tiny sigh that was loud in the utterly silent room, I moved to a chair near the far end of the table, away from the others, and perched at the very end of it. No one was looking at me. Because they were angry with me, or because I didn't really factor into this meeting? If I really was a temporary fixture, then my opinion honestly wouldn't matter.

Suddenly, Edward broke eye contact with Alice and looked straight at me. His mouth turned down in what looked like disapproval, but whether it was a response to my thoughts or one of Alice's I didn't know. Either way, it wasn't an encouraging expression.

"All right," Carlisle began, breaking the spell. He spread his hands over the table, inviting opinions. "Now what?"

"We can take them," Emmett answered excitedly. "We know how they fight."

"I don't think there's anything _to_ do," Edward replied promptly, cutting cleanly through Emmett's version of problem solving. "Nothing's changed."

"Except that now they know," Alice countered.

Yes, they knew. About me. If someone didn't explain what that meant soon, I was going to lose it.

Edward shrugged indifferently. "It was only a matter of time."

"But now we need to be careful," Rosalie was addressing Edward, but staring fixedly at me. "_More_ careful. We can't afford to make a mistake."

By _we_ she meant _me,_ of course. And there it was again, that idea that I was simply a ticking time bomb. Was everyone just sitting back and waiting for me to fail? Okay, fine, I didn't exactly have the best faith in my own abilities either. I'd been too wild to quit cold turkey and not expect a hard repercussion. But that was me, and if there was one thing I'd always been it was self critical. Still, I'd come to think of the family as a kind of support group and had learned to expect their encouragement. Well, maybe not Rosalie's; she didn't seem very interested in encouraging anyone.

Down the table, I saw Edward's mouth quirk into a miniscule smile. No one else seemed to see anything amusing. At least I was good for something.

"Will someone explain this to her, please?" Jasper asked tightly. "The self pity is driving me crazy."

I shot him a dark look, but I couldn't help agreeing. "Yes," I said aloud, my voice a coiled wire of control. "Explain this to her. Fantastic idea."

Carlisle looked closely at me, scrutinizing, measuring me up, and I wondered what exactly they were trying to hide. I drew myself up straighter and planted my back firmly against the chair to indicate that I wasn't going anywhere. Carlisle held his examination for another full five seconds and then nodded.

Finally, he began to speak.

It was amazing when he did. I knew that the others were there, could in fact watch them out of the corner of my eye and record their reactions—they all looked bored; this story was only new to me—but they were secondary to Carlisle's voice. It wasn't that the words themselves had me gripped, it was the way he said them. He could have been dictating a grocery list and the effect would have been the same. He was so confident and commanding, but unassuming at the same time. He didn't have to ask or bully to get people to follow him; every single being at this table respected him and that was enough.

A pang of jealousy shot through me and I almost winced with the force of it. I'd known all along that I could live forever and still never come close to achieving what Carlisle had, but recently, I'd made up my mind to try. Right now, the story he was telling me made me wonder if I should even waste my time. More rules. One more and I might just snap under the mounting strain.

He'd told me about the wolf-men and had started on the geographic issue of the tenuous treaty between them and the family before I began to panic.

"You're telling me this _now_?" I interrupted. I could feel the full weight of what I'd almost done. I could see it now: the way the wolves carefully avoided invading the space between us. _You didn't cross_, Sam had said. And if I had crossed? Even though Carlisle hadn't gotten to the part about consequences, I had a pretty good idea that my own death would have been the least of it. The word 'war' suddenly made glaring sense. "Why didn't you warn me _before_ I did something stupid? I could have known to stay away," my voice was tinged with anger. What a useless secret to keep.

Alice was already shaking her head. "You wouldn't have stayed away." She tapped her temple knowingly, as if I needed a reminder of her gift. "Think back. If we'd told you that we had a vulnerability, what would you have done?"

I thought back, staring self-consciously at my hands as I did so. The beginning of this was not all that far away, but I was still surprised at how quickly I came up with an answer. The saving my life part had been great, but after that, when they'd wanted me to follow their rules instead of living normally, it hadn't been very hard to resent the Cullens, to even hate them. If they'd told me that there was an enemy clan waiting to destroy them if I set so much as a toe over their line, I would have run right to them unquestioningly.

"Point taken," I murmured sullenly. I didn't like the animal I'd been. Now that I was a step closer to being a person again, it was hard to look back.

"You've come a long way," Edward muttered just as quietly. He reached toward me like he might have given my hand a reassuring squeeze if I'd been close enough.

_Eavesdropper_, I thought at him, and watched his lips twitch. But I couldn't bring myself to be offended by the invasion as much as I usually would. Edward was barely around. He didn't see, or worse, hear, the constant struggle I was going through day by day, but he could see the result of my efforts. He didn't seem like one to give empty, ego-boosting compliments, so my work must have actually been paying off, whether it felt like it or not. Finally, a happy prospect to hang on to.

I looked squarely back at Carlisle. "I'll be more careful," I promised him.

He nodded, but made no attempt to move.

Suspiciously, I crossed my arms across my chest and narrowed my eyes. "What's the rest? There has to be more or we wouldn't still be sitting here."

An anxious, uncertain glance made its way around the table and set me right back on edge. On ever face, I read the wish that I'd left well enough alone.

"What?" I asked apprehensively. The idea of having a boundary wasn't something I was happy with, but it was something I could live with. I didn't want to follow rules set by those dogs, but really it was just another odd family tradition…with a death penalty attached. Anything else though… "What's wrong?" they were suddenly throwing uneasy looks toward Edward. What was in my head that they wanted to know?

Another moment of indecisive silence.

My confusion was quickly giving way to anger. I was tired of being left out of the loop and having secrets kept away from me, the newbie. That they might've had a good reason not to tell me only went so far toward keeping me rational. I bit down hard on my tongue to keep from lashing out, but I could feel the wood of the table buckling where I gripped it.

"Carlisle…" Jasper issued the low warning while his eyes wandered over to keep watch on me.

"He's right," Alice chimed in, though she did not sound happy about it. Her mouth was pulled down into a very un-Alice like grimace and her hand snaked over to Jasper's as if seeking comfort. She looked quickly at me and her sour expression became even more pronounced. "Now that they know she's here, they'll expect her to know everything. Not just the easy half."

Easy half. That was when my emotions took a steep spiral into real nervousness for the first time.

"What else?" I asked again, more soberly than I thought I could manage. The wood had given way to the pressure of my fingers, but I was clenching it for support now, not out of anger.

Carlisle opened his mouth. Closed it. Shot a darting glance at Edward.

Edward heaved an almost comical sigh and turned in his chair to face me fully. "The treaty also ends if any of us bite a human." He said it bluntly, without inflection or expression, but his eyes flared with a sort of cold fire. I was too busy absorbing his words to think about what it meant.

I pushed the chair back, leaned forward. I let go of the table. I braced myself, waiting for my muscles to tense and the inevitable fury to overtake me, to sweep me away and free me from the responsibility of logical thought.

It didn't come.

I felt cheated somehow. I let myself fall back against my seat with a heavy thump.

They were watching me again, each with their own version of trepidation as they waited for me to snap. Only Alice and Edward looked unconcerned. When I saw Alice make a small "all clear" gesture with her hand, I put my own fingers over my eyes.

Rage would be easier. Anything other than the iron ball that had settled into my chest. It was a feeling I'd forgotten lately: the dead weight, heavy and suffocating, of responsibility to other people.

In one sentence, my entire focus had been shattered. This was not just about me anymore. It wasn't about taking up the challenge of bettering myself. If I reverted, if my cooling, almost orange eyes flared again into venomous red, I'd be risking something more than personal shame. The entire family—my family—would be in serious danger. No amount of rationalizing could make that fact stop flashing like neon against my closed eyelids.

Carlisle's voice came from the end of the table, a million miles away. It was tentative, like he _knew_ he shouldn't be poking the wild animal with a stick, but was going to do it anyway. "That's why we didn't tell you about any of this before."

"Why?" I forced the word out of reluctant lips. His response was no answer at all.

Suddenly it was bright again; Alice had taken hold of my fingers and pried them away. She was standing next to me now, staring earnestly and almost guiltily into my face. "For the same reason I told them you weren't staying," she said in a tone that was more consoling than I was comfortable with. "If they thought you were family, the rules would have to apply to you too."

"More pressure," Jasper added from somewhere behind her. "And you were already stressed enough."

I let out a kind of hysterical scoff.

"This way," Alice continued, "if…something happened, you could honestly say you had no idea."

"As long as they hadn't already torn my head off, right?"

I saw Esme visibly flinch. "We were trying to protect you," she offered somewhat lamely.

I didn't need clairvoyant abilities to read through that sentence. It wasn't just me they were trying to protect; in fact, it probably wasn't even _mostly_ me. I wondered vaguely how many meetings like this they'd had without me, discussing how to hold up their end of the bargain and support a newborn vampire at the same time.

I also knew what they had to already know: this "noble" plan of theirs had an awful lot of holes. Like believing that the wolves would care who I was living with if they caught me in the act. And if they'd found me when I honestly wasn't up to anything? In that case it probably would have been better for them to know. At least that way I would have had the protection of the Cullen name.

"Okay," I breathed wearily, because there was nothing else to say. It was too much to fight against even if I had the energy to do so. The only thing I really wanted to do was curl up in bed and pretend I could sleep. And forget.

Part of this must have shown on my face, because Alice's crumpled into overwhelming sympathy. She leaned forward and circled my shoulders in the beginnings of a hug.

I wasn't aware of moving, but suddenly I was standing by the door, close to Carlisle.

As Alice slowly lowered her arms, I nodded at the gathering. I was done with this meeting even if they weren't. I wished vehemently that I had never asked for the rest of the explanation.

"Thank you for telling me," I said formally, then I turned and walked out.

Some of my usual agitation was finally coming back, and my steps quickened as I went. It was not blinding like the fit of temper that had deserted me, but it helped to clear my head. I didn't like what I found there. I could feel a welling of panic. All of those thirsty urges I'd learned to keep near the back of my mind asserted themselves, demanding attention now that they were absolutely forbidden. Before, cheating meant a step backward in my own personal fight. Now cheating was the equivalent of murdering all those people I'd come to care about. It was an idea I realized I couldn't stand, that was even painful. It was a bad time to grow a conscious, but I knew that I wouldn't willingly do anything to hurt them anymore.

By the time I reached the stairs I was practically running, feet clicking spasmodically on the floor. Jasper was right, all of this was just more pressure on my already overburdened brain. Much more. Maybe more than I could handle. Caring, it seemed, was a dangerous task.


	7. Chapter 7

**Two updates in one week. I hope I didn't give any one a heart attack from the shock :P**

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"Bree?"

A pause, this one shorter than the ones between the other two times my name had been called.

"Bree!" Urgent instead of politely intrusive, no longer worried about interrupting some important task of mine. More agitated now that it was obvious that I was ignoring the summons.

In reality there was nothing to interrupt, not unless you counted ceiling staring as a serious hobby.

The problem was that everyone else insisted on going on with their lives as usual. They didn't understand that two days ago, everything had changed. The bigger problem? _I_ could barely understand how everything had changed. It was all still the same, monotonous routine, the same teasing with Emmett and talking with Alice and being ignored by Rosalie and compulsively watched by Jasper. The only thing that was really different was my own perception, this knowledge beating in my chest like an actual heart beat.

If I'd never learned the whole truth, I'd still be laying here, trying hard not to think about eating people. So what was the big deal? I released a frustrated growl. The _real_ problem was that absolutely forbidden fruit looked exquisitely more delicious than simple please-don't-touch-that fruit. Not thinking about warm blooded humans was actually harder now, a concept I never would have believed possible. It was like the wolves had become my own personal bogeymen, haunting my every thought, every burning, unsatisfying swallow.

"Bree?" Back to the tentative tone.

I gave in, swinging my legs over the side of my bed. Not because this time the voice was Esme's instead of Alice's, but because I was tired of sulking. And because I needed a distraction.

I left my room, passing the tiny mirror without looking into it. Why bother? From the hallway, I could clearly hear Emmett downstairs, playing around with his game consol again. He had a new game and had been obsessively practicing in the two days I'd been mentally absent. The idea of getting the chance to beat him again was not as exciting as it might once have been. My enthusiasm for things like that had drained in the presence of bigger problems to worry about.

I found the room where Alice and Esme had closeted themselves and knocked. My knuckles were mid-rap when Alice flung open the door.

"It's about _time_," she scolded, managing to look both agitated and relieved. "We _need_ you."

She dragged me inside. The room was dominated by a large square table with a huge sheet of paper covering it. Esme was leaning over it, elbows pinning down the paper. She looked up at me with a distracted smile and a wave, then continued pouring over the sheet, fingers tracing patterns across it.

I moved closer and saw that what I'd originally taken for a map was actually filled with scaled lines and geometric shapes. None of it made any sense to me. I wanted to ask, but didn't bother. If it was important, they'd tell me.

Sure enough, Esme started speaking. "These are the blueprints I was telling you about," she explained.

It took me a full second to remember what she was talking about. That uncomfortable hunt and the conversation afterward seemed like a long time ago, the time before I knew the truth. When I did remember, I grinned a little. "That explains why I have no idea what you're doing."

Alice came up beside me and placed her hands firmly on the table. The determined gesture was as familiar as it was ominous, and I thought again how easy it would be to simply fall back into the family pattern and forget everything else. Except that vampires were worse than elephants; we never forgot, but we had the emotional range to actively resent that fact.

"We," Alice said grandly, "are proving me right."

"But, Alice," Esme said, almost pleaded. Immediately I could tell that this was an old argument. "It just doesn't _fit_."

"Sure it will, you just have to trust me. Bree, help me out."

Esme looked up, eyes blazing passionately. "It would completely destroy the theme of the place: simple. Simple is always better, don't you think, Bree?"

They were both staring at me, waiting for me to take sides. I put my arms up, palms out defensively, and slowly backed away from the table. "I…have no idea what you're talking about." I did, however, know that I did not want to get in the middle of this.

Esme saw my edginess and the fire in her expression cooled to a more manageable heat. "I'm sorry," she said, her smile slightly guilty. She held her hand out over the table and beckoned to me. She looked serious about calming the conversation down, so I gradually lowered my hands and went to stand next to her.

Once I was there, she pulled her arm around to give my shoulder a companionable squeeze. I tensed, just a little, but she pulled away before I had the chance to object.

Esme put her finger back on the paper, making a loose circle around the main picture. "This is my newest project, a little rundown cottage we found in the woods that I'm renovating. It's a quaint thing, and I'd like to keep it that way," she paused and shot a dark look at Alice. "Inside _and_ out."

Alice added her finger to the drawing. "This," she pointed to one particular shape, "will be the master bedroom. And _this_," she moved her finger outside of the shape and into the undeveloped space beyond it, "will be the walk-in closet."

Esme snorted, a surprising sound coming from her. "You don't want a walk-in closet," she clarified a little testily. "You want to make a room big enough to give the clothes their own zip code."

Alice shrugged. "And?"

Esme looked at me, her expression clearly begging me to sympathize with her task of dealing with such an impossible child.

Suddenly I felt like a judge, hearing out both sides of an argument in a civilian lawsuit before passing judgment. Unfortunately, I was missing a lot of crucial information.

"What is this for?" I asked, reasoning that the debate between simple and extravagant would hedge on the eventual use of the place.

They exchanged an ominous glance.

I almost ran out right then. I didn't think I was ready to hear anything else that they didn't want to tell me.

Alice was talking before I could run. "It's…a wedding gift."

"Oh."

The idea was uncomfortable, but not altogether horrible. I didn't necessarily want to help bring Bella into the family when just the thought of her and our…history made me flinch. But this, at least, was something I'd had time to deal with. I'd built up a nice layer of callous where Bella and Edward were concerned.

Esme and Alice were looking at me, waiting for a real reaction. I decided to leave it alone for now. I couldn't forget that this was one of the first times they'd made a point of asking me for help, even if it was about something trivial.

"So," I started, and I saw them relax at my easy tone. "Why is a closet such a bad thing?"

Alice beamed, thinking she'd already won a point. That wasn't necessarily true. Having shared a room for most of my life, I'd gotten used to small spaces and had never seen much use for the kind of thing she was talking about. Alice would probably do better getting the result she wanted if she asked someone like Rosalie. Actually it was odd that Rosalie wasn't already here. I frowned a little, then also remembered Rosalie's reaction when the blueprints were mentioned that day in the forest. Maybe she wasn't exactly happy that this was for the wedding either.

Esme gave a little sight noise, reading the same thing affirmation from my question. "A closet is fine, even a big one," she answered. "But what Alice wants is tactless in this kind of building." She paused, considering. "And Bella wouldn't want it."

Alice very deliberately shrugged off the last sentence. "She'll learn."

I rubbed a hand against my cheek, trying to objectively consider the situation without letting the word "wedding" get in my way.

Looking at Alice, I calculated her mood. Other than the emphatic way she had placed her hands on the table, she'd been completely calm. I had the sudden suspicion that the rest of this conversation would be pointless. Still, I asked another question, almost having fun being a part of this, even if the whole pretense was incomprehensible.

"Who, exactly, will be in charge of Bella's wardrobe?" If it was anything like my own, I thought I already knew the answer.

Sure enough, Alice looked at me like tentacles had just sprouted out of my ears. "I am," she answered in the tone of someone stating the painfully obvious. That she used present tense instead of future almost made me feel a little sorry for Bella.

"Ah," I said. I looked at Esme, thinking again of my own bursting closet.

Esme read the expression in my face and voice, and sighed heavily in resignation. Alice saw it and hopped back from the table, clapping her hands together delightedly.

"I knew it!" she exclaimed gleefully. "Thank you, Bree!" she ran around the table and gave my shoulders a quick squeeze. Esme she pecked on the cheek, smiling. "Don't worry, Esme. It'll all work out, I promise." With that she waltzed out of the room, leaving me shell shocked and slightly dizzy.

Esme stared after her for a second, then shook her head with a bemused smile. She picked up a pencil and began adding lines to the back side of the master bedroom.

I watched her ruefully. "I'm sorry," I told her. "I'm not a fan of the idea either, but…"

She turned her grin on me. "Sometimes, it is absolutely impossible to rein Alice in."

I nodded emphatically. "I think this is probably best though," I offered as a silver lining.

"How do you mean?"

"Once she offered to knock out the back wall of _my_ closet," I said, nodding at the appalled look Esme gave me in response. "It'll be less traumatic to let her have her way."

Esme took in my frank, completely serious look and burst out laughing.

I joined in, laughing hard until we were both clutching the table for support. It felt good. Even better, it felt _natural_. I really had come a long way.

And of course, that thought led inevitably to the next one: Too bad it all seemed to be falling down hill.

My mirth petered out, not abruptly, but in tiny bursts of my left over breath. The last bit of air fell out as a sigh, also inevitable.

Esme caught on quickly to the shift in my mood. She blew out the rest of her laughter in a gusty little chuckle and began to rub her hand in a soothing pattern up and down my forearm.

Esme was a good aunt, fun and comforting and concerned, but never in a suffocating way. She gave me the space I needed without pushing or prodding like a mother might, but employed just enough of her motherly instincts to know exactly when I could handle being touched. Right now her hand felt like a physical tether. It was the one thing stopping me from tearing at the seams, the threads of contradiction and duplicity that held me together, coming unraveled.

"Are you all right?" Esme asked, kindly, but not enough to be embarrassing.

I opened my mouth to say 'yes', to simply leave it at that and deal with my confusion alone. At the last second I changed my mind, shaking my head. "No."

Esme nodded like she'd been expecting my answer, and the speed of her hand increased. "It'll be all right," she assured me. "You'll see."

I echoed her nod, though I didn't really believe her. Things were too hard right now to rely on optimism; it was difficult to see any potential bright spots.

"I'm just…" I groped for the right explanation. "A little lost."

There. That was it exactly. With my focus shifted away from my personal problems, I couldn't find a solid base to fall back on. I'd lost my drive, there were no more strong, encouraging thoughts to make me push aside the fire in my throat and move on. Now when things got tough, I could only think about my family, suffering if I made a mistake. Worse, _fighting_ for my mistake. It wasn't the kind of loyalty I deserved; I hadn't earned the right to let them hurt themselves for me.

My will power had evaporated. I wasn't determined anymore. I was simply scared.

I said it aloud, testing the sound of it. "I'm scared. I don't want to let any of you down."

Gracefully, Esme gave me a quick squeeze, a break in the pattern, and then skipped over my first admission. "We all know you'll do your best," she said with total conviction. "We trust you."

"That's the part that worries me," I mumbled.

Suddenly, I was in the circle of Esme's arms and this time, I let it happen. I even linked my own hands behind her waist and pressed myself to her. For just a moment, I wanted to let someone else support my weight.

Esme did just that for a few, precious seconds, and then she pulled away, dragging a little of my anxiety along with her.

Without another word, she picked up her pencil again and went back to drawing lines. She constructed a rectangle, wider than it was tall, then stabbed the pencil in the center of it triumphantly. "There," she said. "What do you think?"

The shapes still made no sense to me, but I returned her radiant smile. It was an easy smile, like the corners of my mouth were no longer held down with bricks.

"I think it's going to be perfect, Esme," I said, and kissed her on the cheek.

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**I realize that I'm probably stretching the time between _Eclipse _and_ Breaking Dawn_ a little, but I've decided not to worry too much about it.**

**Hope you enjoyed :)**


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